My First Time: Female, 15, Ireland

At the innocent age of fifteen, all I really knew about sex was that guys dumped you if you didn't do it. (Naive, I know.) I'd recently lost weight and gotten a new haircut; I was feeling attractive, but attention from males was still quite scarce at my all-girls Catholic school.

I'd started smoking, and I used to hang around in a dirty alley, in the half hour before school began, to suck in as much nicotine as possible in the hope that it'd last me until four p.m. One morning, while I was sitting on a windowsill of a recently closed-down nightclub, someone asked me for a lighter in a gruff voice. I looked up and saw a smile blurred by braces, curly brown hair, and huge DJ headphones. Names aren't important, maybe because I'd rather chew off my own arm then tell anyone who he is. Anyway. We started seeing each other in January, and he wasn't exactly a gentleman, but I didn't know any better.

By the time summer rolled around, we were deep into "will we or won't we" mode with regard to sex. I decided that I should just get it the fuck over with — stop being such a pansy and suck it up. I knew dozens who had done it and said that apart from a bit of pain it was fine. So I messaged him, and told him that I'd be at his house the next morning. I knew his parents would be at work, and that we'd have all day to ourselves.

“I used to hang around in a dirty alley before school began, to smoke as much as possible…”

Somehow, I'd convinced myself that it would be so romantic, with candles, rose petals, and of course, the Hollywood-style orgasm. It was not. What greeted me instead was a boy's messy bedroom, clothes everywhere, bed not even made, walls covered with posters of topless women. Actually, at first we'd been making out on his white leather couch, but we made the decision to move upstairs in case of bleeding. (Practical, if not romantic.) Once we were in his bedroom, he unrolled a condom, I pulled down my pants but kept my bra on (heaven knows why), and we fumbled in the false dark I'd created by pulling down the blinds and closing the curtains.

Less than two minutes later, it was over. He rolled over and kissed me on the cheek, before getting up for a shower. I got dressed, tried to look sexy, and followed him downstairs, where he was making tea and he offered me a cup. It was then I realized I'd never get another first time. I was fifteen and it was over in a heartbeat. I spent the rest of the day watching him play computer games while I texted my friends, acting as if nothing had happened because of the sheer fucking shame of it.